Aniono the Magazines. 221 



DO BIRDS FLY DOWN? 



I see, in a back number of St. Niche/as, that one of your young 

 correspondents appeals partly to me in regard to birds flying down. 

 But all who have written seem so well posted that I doubt if I can 

 add anything to their knowledge. 



However, I have seen a California quail, a wood-dove, and a 

 humming-bird flying downward ; but in slow flyers, with large 

 wings and heavy bodies, the wings are used more or less as para- 

 chutes in going down ; in other words, the birds spread their 

 wings, and rely upon gravity. This I have noticed in the sand- 

 hill cranes in their migrations along the Sierra Madres. A flock, 

 of say a hundred, will mount upward in a beautiful spiral, flashing 

 in the sunlight, all the while uttering loud, discordant notes, until 

 they attain an altitude of nearly a mile above the sea-level. Then 

 they form in regular lines, and soar away at an angle that in five 

 miles, or so, will bring them within one thousand feet of the earth. 

 Then they will stop and begin the spiral upward movement again 

 until a high elevation is reached, when, away they go again sliding 

 downhill in the air, toward their winter home. It is very evident 

 that a vast amount of muscular exertion is saved in this way. In 

 some of these slides that I have watched through a glass, birds 

 would pass from three to four miles, I should judge, without flap- 

 ping the wings. — St. Nicholas. 



THE RESTLESS SEA. 



O, the sea, the restless sea ! 

 Emblem of humanity ! 

 Where's the oil to still the waves? 

 Check their making watery graves ? 

 High the billows toss and roll ; 

 Low the liquid shallows stroll, 

 Like the human seas of earth. 

 Wild with sad or joyous mirth. 

 Heaving, tossing, never still, 

 As the surging human will 

 Follows the receding wave, 

 Surging to a lonely grave. 

 So do people in their wrath, 

 Travel in an unknown path, 

 Leading to the very brink 

 Where the fatal depth would sink. 

 E'en the most substantial boat, 

 Sailing windward or afloat, 

 Sailing east or saihng west, 

 Change they find, but never rest. 



L. M. Smith. 



